Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:57:30 +0100 (MET) | From | Geert Uytterhoeven <> | Subject | RE: GPL Violation of 'sveasoft' with GPL Linux Kernel/Busybox + code |
| |
On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Alan Cox wrote: > On Llu, 2004-11-08 at 01:14, David Schwartz wrote: > > For those not familiar, sveasoft revokes your license to receive further > > updates if you exercise your distribution rights under the GPL. I would > > argue that conditioning the sale of a GPL'd work on a failure to exercise > > your rights under the GPL is a "further restriction".
Did you have to pay first to receive updates later? I.e. you buy the device, and will receive future updates for free (no money)?
> I don't see the problem. If I ship you GPL code then you have no "right" > to updates from me. You are arguing about a right that never existed and > for good reason. Do you think that if Linus personally emails you a > snapshot you somehow acquire the right to demand newer updates from him > ? or how about "I bought Red Hat 1.1 so you must send me 9.0". Both > strike me as a little ridiculous and certainly not GPL granted rights. > > As a GPL code provider their duties to you are to the source to the GPL > code they gave you binaries for (or other variant options in the > license). They end there. I don't have to give your friend a copy, I > don't have to give you updates.
That's true: you don't have an automatic right to receive updates for free.
But revoking a (paid) license if you do something that's explicitly allowed by the license of (part of) the supplied software sounds a bit fishy to me...
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert (IANAL)
-- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |